| Works/Mp3 Biography Links Books | Biography ofCésar Franck10 dec 1822 (Liège) - 8 nov 1890 (Paris) |
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César Auguste Jean Guillaume Hubert Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a Belgian-French composer, organist and music teacher whose symphonic, chamber, and keyboard works are "among the most distinguished contributions in the field by any French musician."[1]
BiographyFranck was born in Liège, then part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (today Belgium) to a father from the German-Belgian border and a German mother. His father had ambitions for him to become a concert pianist, and he studied at the conservatoire in Liège before going to the Paris Conservatoire in 1838 after private studies with Anton Reicha for a year. Upon leaving in 1842 he briefly returned to Belgium, but went back to Paris in 1844 and remained there for the rest of his life. His decision to give up a career as a virtuoso led to strained relations with his father during this time. [2] During his first years in Paris, Franck made his living by teaching, both privately and institutionally. He also held various posts as organist: from 1847 to 1851 he was organist at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, and from 1851 to 1858 he was organist at Saint-Jean-Saint-François-au-Marais. During this time he became familiar with the French romantic organs being built by the famous builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, as well as the fingering and pedal performance techniques taught by the Belgian organist Jacques-Nicholas Lemmons. Inspired by the performance and compositional possibilities opened by these innovations, he worked on expanding his own technique as an organist and improviser.[3] In 1858, he became organist and maitre de chapelle at newly-consecrated Basilica of St. Clotilde, where he remained until his death. Upon the parish's installation and inauguration of a new Cavaillé-Coll instrument in 1860, he was made titulaire. Here he began to attract attention for his skill as an improviser. His first set of mature organ works date from this period (1860-62, although not published until 1868). The Six Pièces contain two of his best-known organ works, the Prelude, Fugue et Variation and the Grande Pièce Symphonique. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1873.[4] From 1872 to his death he was professor of organ at the Conservatoire de Paris. His pupils included Vincent d'Indy, Ernest Chausson, Louis Vierne, and Henri Duparc. For this work he was in 1885 made a Chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur.[5] As an organist he was particularly noted for his skill in improvisation, and on the basis of merely twelve major organ works, Franck is considered by many the greatest composer of organ music after J. S. Bach. His works were some of the finest organ pieces to come from France in over a century, and laid the groundwork for the French symphonic organ style. In particular, his Grande Pièce Symphonique, a work of 25 minutes' duration, paved the way for the organ symphonies of Charles-Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and Marcel Dupré. In 1890, Franck was accidentally hit by a horse-drawn trolley, injuring his head. There seemed to be no immediate after-effects; indeed, it was after this accident that he wrote his Trois chorals for organ. However, Franck's health rapidly deteriorated thereafter as a result of complications from the accident and he died shortly after finishing the chorales. He was interred in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.[6] StyleMany of Franck's works employ "cyclic form", a method of achieving unity among several movements in which all of the principal themes of the work are generated from a germinal motif. The main melodic subjects, thus interrelated, are then recapitulated in the final movement. His music is often contrapuntally complex, using a harmonic language that is prototypically late Romantic, showing a great deal of influence from Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his compositions, Franck showed a talent and a penchant for frequent, graceful modulations of key. Often these modulatory sequences, achieved through a pivot chord or through inflection of a melodic phrase, arrive at harmonically remote keys. Indeed, Franck's students report that his most frequent admonition was to always "modulate, modulate." Franck's modulatory style and his idiomatic method of inflecting melodic phrases are among his most recognizable traits. The key to his music may be found in his personality. His friends record that he was "a man of utmost humility, simplicity, reverence and industry." LegacyUnusually for a composer of such importance and reputation, Franck's fame rests largely on a small number of compositions written in his later years, particularly his Symphony in D minor (1886-88), the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for piano solo (1884), the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major (1886), the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879), and the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1883). The Symphony was especially admired and influential among the younger generation of French composers and was highly responsible for reinvigorating the French symphonic tradition after years of decline. One of his best known shorter works is the motet setting Panis Angelicus, which was originally written for tenor solo with organ and string accompaniment, but is also arranged for other voices and instrumental combinations. César Franck exerted a significant influence on music. He helped to renew and reinvigorate chamber music and developed the use of cyclic form. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel remembered and employed the cyclic form, although their concepts of music were no longer the same as Franck's. WorkFurther information: List of compositions by César Franck and Category:Compositions by César Franck
Notable recordingsSymphony in D minor
Le Chasseur maudit
Organ works
Sonata for violin and piano in A major
Piano Quintet in F minor
Other Symphonic
Piano
MediaReferencesNotes
Sources
External links
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